Alarmed by widespread reports of visibly sick, deformed seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico, state officials have closed area waters to shrimping this morning (April 23). The waters will be closed indefinitely as scientists run tests in an effort to get a handle on a situation that is fast becoming a full-blown crisis on the Gulf Coast.

The closures – including all waters in the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon – mark the first official step in responding to increasingly urgent reports from fishermen and scientists of grotesquely disfigured seafood from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle.

The move is yet another major setback for the once-legendary Gulf seafood industry as it continues to struggle under the devastating impact of the BP oil spill, which began in April 2010.

Two years later, reports of severely deformed shrimp with bulging tumors – and no eyes – have become common.

And it’s not just the shrimp. Commercial fishermen are reporting red snapper and grouper riddled with deep lesions and covered with strange black streaks. Highly underdeveloped blue crabs are being pulled up in traps without eyes and claws (see link at bottom to my previous post on seafood deformities).

For those who thought 205 million gallons of oil and 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant weren’t going to have an impact on Gulf seafood, you need to check back in with reality.

As for the impetus for the shrimping closures, consider this from an April 18 Al Jazeera report by Dahr Jamail, who has doggedly covered the BP spill since the early days of the disaster:

“At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these,” Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP’s oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: “Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets.”

Disturbing indeed. I am deeply saddened but not surprised by the shrimping closures. I applaud the courageous move by state officials to put consumer safety first. There’s no doubt in my mind – as I’ve said for months on end – that seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico is unfit for human consumption.

We will bring you updates on water testing and any word on when these areas of the Gulf will be re-opened to shrimping.

Replies to This Discussion

Awful, and didn't we all here realise this would happen even whilst Obama and crew were stating the Gulf seafood was safe to eat.

So what about Atlantic fishes and all beach areas warmed by the Gulf Stream.

Some folk claimed the Gulf Stream had failed due to this, but that circulation is driven by the cooler deeper waters. It is not the current stopping we need to worry about, but the chemicals being carried by that current.

On April 21, ABC affiliate WEAR-TV, which covers Pensacola, Moblie and Fort Walton, reported on its website that some areas of the Gulf were being closed on the morning of April 23 due to concerns over the presence of smaller-than-normal shrimp and shrimp with “lesions.” That report was in line with a multitude of other recent mainstream media reports – from the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and others (see links to articles at bottom) – of severely deformed seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. The deformities – confirmed by local fishermen, seafood processors and scientists alike – include shrimp with no eyes, shrimp with tumors, red snapper and grouper with deep lesions and underdeveloped blue crabs without claws (see video below).

We picked up the WEAR-TV report and published an April 23 post entitled, “Looming Crisis: Officials Close Gulf Waters to Shrimping as Reports of Deformed Seafood Intensify.” Unfortunately, the WEAR-TV report turned out to be incorrect. The ABC affiliate has pulled the initial report and replaced it with this correction dated April 25:

Alabama – The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has temporarily closed some local waterways to shrimping. The waters were closed to shrimping on Monday.

The areas include all waters in the Mississippi Sound, Mobile Bay, areas of Bon Secour, Wolf Bay, and Little Lagoon.

The closure is in response to routine shrimp sampling that indicated the average size were smaller than 68 head-on shrimp per pound. Meaning biologists found smaller than average shrimp in the waters causing the temporary closure. They will continue to take samples in these areas and determine any modifications to the closures.

And we’d like to clarify that the closures were not due to lesions being found on shrimp as we reported earlier this weekend and Monday morning.

Although our “blog team” includes legal experts, civil engineers, toxicologists, Gulf fishermen and a variety of other sources, we must also rely on the mainstream media for information. Unfortunately, the media outlet we relied on in this instance made a reporting error and we unwittingly reproduced that error.

As we strive for the highest standard of journalistic integrity, we have removed our April 23 post.

However, let me be very clear, the confusion over the water closures in no way changes the fact that there are severely deformed shrimp, crabs and fish coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. This video confirms that claim: (referring to the above video)